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Toronto casino: How councillors reacted to Wynne’s casino decision

Wed., March 20, 2013

Here’s a sample of Toronto councillors’ reactions to Wednesday’s news that Premier Kathleen Wynne has ordered the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. to apply the same hosting fee formula to Toronto as other cities.

&lt;bullet&gt;Councillor Michael Thompson (Ward 37, Scarborough Centre), right-leaning chair of the economic development committee: “It would appear that the downtown casino proposal is dead if we are not getting the $100 million in guaranteed annual revenue. I want the money for transit and I’ve been told that a city like Toronto, with the capacity to generate revenues at a casino resort, should expect at least $100 million a year. If the patient was drowning before, the patient is basically in the bottom of the water now and weighted down.”

&lt;bullet&gt;Councillor Paul Ainslie (Ward 43, Scarborough East), who also leans right: “Even at $100 million plus revenues, I’d still have concerns about the jobs and our infrastructure, and what are we doing to protect people from health and gambling concerns. At this point for casinos, there’s a lot more red flags for me than there are green flags.”

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West), right-leaning: “If the revenue isn’t there that I know is there, I may not be able to support a casino. I will blame the Liberals directly if we don’t support this casino. If the new premier doesn’t think that Toronto can get its own deal, then she obviously doesn’t give a damn about this city and the Liberals don’t give a damn about the city.”

Councillor David Shiner (Ward 24, Willowdale), right-leaning: “I've always believed that Toronto should be getting $100-million-plus for permitting a casino in the city. If the revenues are small, the chances are slim that Toronto’s ever going to support a casino.”

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Councillor Norm Kelly (Ward 40, Scarborough-Agincourt), right-leaning: “When you travel, you see national governments, provincial governments, pouring money into their premier cities, reinforcing them, their chances for success in the very competitive international contest between premier cities, and you realize: in Ontario, we’re considered to exist on the same plane as Wawa!”

Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park), left-leaning: “I think the casino issue is already dead here at the city. I think all this does is flush out some of the mayor’s allies who were planning on voting no anyway.”

Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina), left-leaning: “The city manager’s report with Ernst and Young is wrong; it’s not $168 million. The real number is closer to $20 million to $25 million. And that’s not enough to destroy every small downtown business, to wipe out the tax base in the downtown core, and to create a traffic gridlock problem the likes of which the city would never survive. I think it kills the casino.”

Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina), left-leaning: “It’s exactly what we’ve been saying all along, that Toronto’s not going to get a special deal out of this. That’s not how provincial politics works in Ontario. The fact is the OLG and the provincial government won’t want to share the profits.

Councillor Josh Colle (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence), centrist: “I find it doesn’t really jibe with what we’ve been told all along. We’ve been pretty clearly told by OLG and the province how unique and special an opportunity Toronto is, especially for us to consider a downtown Toronto site. Yet at the same time they’re kind of now saying, in my estimation, the exact opposite. I just don’t really see how it equates.”

&lt;bullet&gt;Councillor Vincent Crisanti (Ward 1, Etobicoke North), right-leaning: “There has been a lot of focus on the revenue. There are many other benefits aside from the casino. Every indication is that the casino is just a small portion of it. There is the entertainment, there’s the convention centre, there’s dining … then the benefits of the economic impact, the jobs it’s going to create. So there’s more than just the revenue in itself.”

&lt;bullet&gt;Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre, left-leaning: “I’m still undecided. I see the merits of both sides, but I haven’t seen any real facts in front of me. It’s all speculation right now.”

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